At the Intersection of Politics, Science, Faith, and Reason. (A website by Trevor Grant Thomas designed to inform the world from a Christian conservative worldview, and to make new and better disciples of Jesus Christ.)
The ultimate question for us all: What shall I do with Jesus? (Matt. 27:22)

Saturday, April 13, 2013

How the Founders Would View Same-Sex Marriage

In the ongoing debate on the definition of marriage, I have
made it clear morethanonce that both
sides are making a moral argument, and it is futile for anyone to decry the
“legislating of morality.” I have also made it clear that, whether the issue is
marriage or homosexuality, and whether one appeals to Scripture, Natural Law,
or science,
the morally superior position lies with the conservative Christian views on
these matters.

When I ask a liberal upon what moral authority he
relies when he reaches his pro-homosexual/same-sex marriage conclusions,
inevitably the answer is the U.S. Constitution. No doubt, throughout our
history, in order to further the pagan liberal
agenda, liberal jurists have “interpreted” the U.S. Constitution nearly beyond
recognition.

Thus, displays of the Ten Commandments on public property
are ruled to violate the Constitution, while businesses peddling pornography
are seen to be protected by it. When ruling on a matter pertaining to the
Constitution, courts ultimately will rely on the words and deeds (though often
rather selectively) of our Founders as evidence to the correct interpretation
of the words of the Constitution.

One would have to have been raised by squirrels (or be a
cast member of an MTV reality program) to be an adult in the U.S. and not at
least have heard of the “Separation of Church and State.” In declaring
government religious (mainly Christian) expression unconstitutional, the courts
refer to the First Amendment, and they interpret that amendment through the
words of Thomas Jefferson in a letter that he penned to the Danbury Baptists,
which declared “a wall of separation between Church and State.”

For over 70 years, time and again U.S.
courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court, have referenced Jefferson’s “Wall” in
order to restrict religious (almost exclusively Christian) expression in America. Thus,
as we weigh and debate marriage in the U.S., it would be an ironic
travesty not to consider the words and deeds of our Founders as we draw our
legal conclusions.

I submit (with sad and stunning trepidation that such a
submission is even necessary) that not one single Founder would give the notion
that marriage is anything other than the union of one man and one woman more
than a half-second’s thought before (rightly) concluding that such an idea is
either a terrible joke or spoken by a lunatic.

First of all, forget marriage; the idea that homosexuality
should be considered normal and acceptable behavior would be deemed a wicked
and ridiculous conclusion by our Founders. Under British law, sodomy was a
capital crime. Sir William Blackstone, as I noted
recently, was a favorite English jurist of our Founders, and his Commentaries on the Laws of England
served as the basis of legal jurisprudence in America.

As David Barton remarks, “In addressing
sodomy (homosexuality), [Blackstone] found the subject so reprehensible that he
was ashamed even to discuss it.” Nevertheless, Blackstone declared:

“What has been here observed…the infamous crime against
nature committed either with man or beast. A crime which ought to be strictly
and impartially proved and then as strictly and impartially punished….I will
not act so disagreeable part to my readers as well as myself as to dwell any
longer upon a subject the very mention of which is a disgrace to human nature
[sodomy]…A taciturnity observed likewise by the edict of Constantius and
Constans: …(where that crime is found, which is unfit even to know, we command
the law to arise armed with an avenging sword that the infamous men who are, or
shall in future be guilty of it, may undergo the most severe punishments).

“THIS the voice of nature and of reason, and the express law
of God, determine to be capital. Of which we have a signal instance, long
before the Jewish dispensation, by the destruction of two cities by fire from
heaven: so that this is an universal, not merely a provincial, precept.”

Following the same moral precepts, each of the original 13
colonies treated homosexuality as a serious criminal offense. Jefferson himself
authored such a law for the state of Virginia,
prescribing that the punishment for sodomy was to be castration. (You think
modern courts will look to this for guidance?)

New York’s law read, “That the detestable and abominable
vice of buggery [sodomy] . . . shall be from henceforth adjudged felony . . .
and that every person being thereof convicted by verdict, confession, or
outlawry [unlawful flight to avoid prosecution], shall be hanged by the neck
until he or she shall be dead.”

Connecticut’s
law read, “That if any man shall lie with mankind as he lieth
with womankind, both of them have committed abomination; they both shall be put
to death.” Georgia’s law (surprisingly—at least for today’s liberals) did not
call for the death penalty, but stated, “Sodomy . . . shall be
punished by imprisonment at hard labour in the penitentiary during the natural
life or lives of the person or persons convicted of th[is] detestable crime.”

General George Washington dealt, at least once, directly
with the issue of homosexual behavior in the Continental Army. A lieutenant
Enslin was tried and convicted of attempting to commit sodomy with John
Monhort, a soldier. The ruling declares, “His Excellency the Commander in Chief
approves the sentence and with abhorrence and detestation of such infamous
crimes orders Lieutt. Enslin to be drummed out of camp tomorrow morning by all
the drummers and fifers in the Army never to return.”

Liberals should not bother with the “but the Founders
supported slavery” argument. First of all, many Founders did not support
slavery, and it was hotly debated at our founding and beyond. (Also, it should
be noted that it was Bible-believing Christians who led the abolition
movement.) This is certainly not the case when it comes to homosexual behavior.
Secondly, one can’t appeal to the Founders only when it is convenient.

It is also noteworthy that the due process clauses of the
Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments (the Fourteenth Amendment being ratified in
1868) did nothing to prevent all 50 U.S. states, including each state
that entered the union after 1868, from enacting laws against homosexual
behavior. As recently as 1962, sodomy was a felony in every state in the U.S.

In other words, for nearly 200 years and without any Constitutional
conflictions or any serious debate, homosexual behavior in America was
seen as immoral and therefore illegal. Thus, we see that the Founders do
nothing but support the traditional (biblical) view of marriage.

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I was born in 1969 to Edsel and Carolyn Thomas and have lived all my life in Northeast Georgia. I've been a follower of Jesus since 1986. I am originally from White County, where I graduated from high school and lived for the first twenty-plus years of my life. (Most of my family and my wife’s family live in White County.) Michelle and I married on January 31, 1998. We have 4 beautiful children (three boys and one girl): Caleb, born 2002; Jesse, born 2004; Caroline born 2006; and Noah born in 2008. We currently reside in the North Hall area. I have a BS degree in physics from the University of North Georgia, an MEd in mathematics education from the University of North Georgia, and an EdS in mathematics education from the University of Georgia. I've been teaching high school mathematics (public and private) since 1993. In 2013 my wife and I published Debt-Free Living in a Debt-Filled World. In 2016 I published The Miracle and Magnificence of America. I have been writing opinion columns since 2001. I have been blogging (though not with my own blog) since 2007. My hobbies include anything that allows me to spend time with my family, and includes action movies, swimming, hunting, fishing, gardening, and maintaining my lawn. I also enjoy most sports that involve a ball, and try (somewhat) hard to not cuss while watching the Georgia Bulldogs, the Atlanta Falcons, Braves, and Hawks, and the Dallas Cowboys.